About the Author

Holly Goddard Jones is the author of the short story collection Girl Trouble. Her work has appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South, Tin House magazine, and elsewhere. She was a 2013 recipient of The Fellowship of Southern Writers' Hillsdale Prize for Excellence in Fiction and a 2007 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and lives in Greensboro with her husband, Brandon, and two rowdy dogs. Visit HollyGoddardJones.com.

Reviews

"If you're yearning for a genre-defying novel filled with mystery and suspicion, who better to provide a recommendation than author Gillian Flynn, whose wonderfully bizarre Gone Girl also defies categorization. She calls The Next Time You See Me 'simply mesmerizing.' . . . What this novel does is align and then intertwine the lives of these characters, fascinating us with their psyches and, let's face it, sad and sorry lives. . . . Their stories aren't pretty, but Jones lays them out in a beautifully articulate way."-- "USA Today (3 1/2 stars)"

"Jones ties together the narratives effectively, cycling point-of-view between the three main players." -- "Publishers Weekly"

"The lonely cast of outcasts in The Next Time You See Me has enough heartache for a whole jukebox full of country songs. Holly Goddard Jones spins a tight if heartbreaking tale, always keeping the reader leaning forward."--Stewart O'Nan, author of Songs for the Missing

"This first novel by award-winning Jones (Girl Trouble) is going to be hot. In the vein of Gone Girl, last summer's runaway smash, Jones's tightly written Southern thriller will be one of spring's sizzling titles. Jones brilliantly weaves together story lines from unexpected angles. Her writing is fluid and she keeps a pace that will have readers lacing on their running shoes. And what a suspenseful, emotional, addictive run it is! Buy it now, read it now, share it now."-- "Library Journal (starred review)"

"The Next Time You See Me will no doubt be compared to Russell Banks' The Sweet Hereafter. . . . Yet, because of the depth of characterization and literary skill, Holly Goddard Jones' novel would better be compared to Dennis Lehane's Mystic River, which is probably one of the best literary mysteries of the past few decades. . . . Those who prefer mature, well-written and intelligent literary fiction with just a dash of mystery would be advised to read The Next Time You See Me."-- "Roanoke Times"

"The Next Time You See Me is an astoundingly good novel. Holly Goddard Jones writes with authority and a deep generosity about a large swath of humanity within a small town: Outsiders and insiders, middle-schoolers and the middle-aged, the violent and the violated, the lost and the found--and all those in between. The result is simply mesmerizing."--Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl

"The Next Time You See Me gives readers all the pleasures of the best mystery novels as well as the finest literary fiction. No matter gender, age, or social class, Jones's boundless empathy renders characters who are vivid, complex, utterly realized. She is an exceptionally talented writer."--Ron Rash, author of The Cove and Serena

"Have you turned the last pages of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and don't know what to pick up next? Try Holly Goddard Jones' debut novel, The Next Time You See Me, which Flynn herself has called 'simply mesmerizing.' . . . Like Flynn, [Jones] not only creates young women with troubles, she also vividly depicts a part of the country often obscured from view."-- "Chicago Tribune"

When Ronnie Eastman disappears from a small southern town in 1993, the residents start revealing their true characters, in Jones's transparent debut novel (after Girl Trouble, a short story collection). Ronnie's sister, Susanna, disappointed with her marriage and life, regrets not pursuing her teenage crush because of her father's racism. That crush, a local baseball star named Tony, is now a detective assigned to find Ronnie. Tony and Susanna's close proximity to each other for the first time in years brings the old feelings rushing back. Paralleling the story of the search is the story of Emily, a local teenager, awkward and teased, who finds a body a few days before Halloween. Emily is nursing her own crush, on a boy who just moved to the school, and rather than reporting her gruesome find, she uses it as a way to get closer to him. And Wyatt is a local factory worker, living a lonely life until he meets Sarah, a nurse he thinks he might be able to love. All of these lives connect through the search for Ronnie, with consequences for them all. Jones ties together the narratives effectively, cycling point-of-view between the three main players, but her characters are underdeveloped and there's little doubt about the identity of the killer. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents Inc. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Emily is a troubled 13-year-old, teased by the cutest boy in school and unable to rise above being the seventh-grade cipher. Her world is turned upside down when she stumbles across a body in the woods. Emily's teacher, Susanna, is worried about her problematic sister, Ronnie. Ronnie is a partier, a hard-drinking partier who loves a wild night out. But Susanna hasn't heard from Ronnie in weeks. Wyatt is an older man set in his ways who works at the local plant. All he has in his lonely life is his dog and his measly job. These characters and more all intersect in various ways under Jones's deft control, coalescing in a climactic ending. V-ERDICT This first novel by award-winning Jones (Girl Trouble) is going to be hot. In the vein of Gone Girl, last summer's runaway smash, Jones's tightly written Southern thriller will be one of spring's sizzling titles. Jones brilliantly weaves together story lines from unexpected angles. Her writing is fluid and she keeps a pace that will have readers lacing on their running shoes. And what a suspenseful, emotional, addictive run it is! Buy it now, read it now, share it now.-Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.